The World Population Day was celebrated by the Health and Family Welfare Department here on Monday. H and FW Principal Secretary Nikunja Bihari Dhal was chief guest.
There is a huge need for public awareness about family planning to control population explosions. Family planning is key to controlling population growth. So this year the World Population Day slogan was ‘Parivar Niyojan Aapanantu, Unnati ra Nutan Adhaya Lekhantu’.
Malkangiri and Raygada for family planning service, Deogargh and Jagatsignpur for MPA (Antara) acceptance, Malkangiri and Subarnapur for IUCD acceptance, Khurda and Nuapada for implementation of FPLMIS in family planning logistics and supply chain programme, and Khurda and Ganjam for DVLMs were awarded on the occasion.
Similarly, lifetime achievement award for family planning was conferred on Dr Sadananda Panigrahi, Dr Madan Mohan Mohapatra, Dr Sapan Kumar Dinda, Dr Anup Kumar Ghose, Dr Muralidhar Padhi and Dr Deepak Kuam Dehury.
Director FW Department, Dr Bijay Kumar Panigrahy, Director, Health Service Dr Bijay Kumar Mohapatra, Director, Public Health Dr Niranja Mishra, Additional Director, Health and FamilyDr Murali Dhar Padhi welfare were present.
As part of the programme, a month-long campaign as ‘Population Stabilisation Fortnight’ or ‘Janasankhya Sthirata Pakshya’ from July 11 to 24 was launched. It was preceded by a ‘Mobilisation Fortnight' from June 27 to July 10 in the entire State.
To take the initiative forward, a number of measures have been undertaken by the Department of Health and Family Welfare to improve the programme outcomes in the State like popularising ‘Parivar Kalyan Diwas’ on fixed days wherein all the family planning services including counselling are being made available to the eligible clients in most of the health facilities both at district and sub-district levels which has widened the service coverage network; going for extensive capacity building of the service providers and effective deployment of the available family planning manpower for making quality sterilization, MPA and IUCD services made easily available to the target audience; emphasizing on promoting male engagement in family planning as an attempt to reduce gender disparities and motivating men to take up greater and more active roles in reproductive health-related decisions and practices etc.